3820TG Owner's Lounge - Part Two

I've tried so many different methods suggested from this (and the previous 1000post+ thread!) to get a good mix of switching and latest ATI drivers. My advice, just stick with non-switching, you'll get the best ATI performance (although I'm biased, I rarely keep the laptop at integrated, and have no need for switching)

Or, and this may be a horrible comment for this thread, consider an upgrade? I'm to replace my 3820tg i5/5650 combo with the new LG330. Current options available aren't that great though.

 

You will find a lot of LG fans on this site. The 3820TG was considered the successor to the LG P310. LG had a real problem distributing the P310. I hope they've learned from that model.

The P330 looks to be a step in the right direction. I will be curious to see if LG can handle the Fermi heat.

It is also quite chunky for an ultralight.

Bronsky

 

Hello,

Let's come to a Visual Mod of the 3820TG:
Has anybody thought of removing the "acer"-logo on the laptop-lid? I really like the "brushed" surface of my laptop, but der acer logo is at the wong place there. So: is it just glued on, or how hard is it to remove it?

Greetings,

USB2Serial

 

It can be removed if you pry it off, but the acer indentation is still visible, according to some users in the original 3820TG thread.

 

Okay, prying it off is not as simple as i thought, its concrete aluminium. very strong attached to the lid. :/
Tomorrow I'll try with sandpaper an a sticker

 

Interesting; perhaps I should keep my 3820tg! Depends on if I feel 3.6lb is a few hundred grams too heavy.

 

slightly off topic but 3820 related.
I bought FO3 GOTY from steam sale. Downloaded.
During install I got some weird warning that said I should change something in windoez control panel. It didn't let me do anything but continue, which I did and the install finished.
The game loads fine, the new game video plays through perfect, but, the game is freezing at the part where the screen is white and the story begins.
3820tg with i5/6550. Intel 120GB ssd. 8GB Ram. Stock Win764. NO overclocks.

Game just freezes and I don't understand why.

Before I spend my weekend trying to hunt for this specific bug I though I'd ask here quickly.

Thanks!
-dam25

 

According to some people in the part one of this thread it's low relief, so I wouldn't suggest to remove the logo.

I'm still trying to find a nice sticker to put over it.

 

I put this on mine and I quite like it. The Acer logo just looks like a big air bubble. Shaped like an Acer logo.

 

Did you buy the 12" or 14"? How does it fit? I would appreciate if you could take pictures.

Thank you very much.

Raul

 

It's a one size fits all and you cut it down to fit. On my 14" machine the outer corner bits are just about gone. On a 13" I'd imagine most of the dragon would still fit on, but on a 12" you'd be cutting a 1/2" or so off the bottom of the dragon design.

I'll try to get my battery charged for my camera and take some pics.

 

I just bought 5 months old 3820TG for 400€. I think good purchase. I really love it! I try some OC: CPU i5 460M isn't stable on more than 3100MHz(IntelBurnTest), but 5650 is relative stable on 700/1100 with no artefacts. GPU isn't very stable but memory is ok. It's about 30% performance boost.

 

hey can anyone link me to the latest graphics dirvers? thanks!

btw i was using 10.8 with overclock at 730/1100. upgraded to 11.2 (non hybrid, since i couldnt understand what the hybrid meant) and now it crashed at 730/1100. Also my 3dmark06 seems to have dropped.

 

The hybrid driver is no longer necessary (thanks!) since Acer updated the Intel graphic (finally!). Download Acer VGA driver 8.771.1, install it. http://global-download.acer.com/Ste...C=EMEA_27&LC=en&OS=721&FS=O01&Category=DRIVER

Then, get WHQL Catalyst 11.6: http://www2.ati.com/DriVeRs/mobile/11-6_mobility_vista_win7_64_dd_ccc_ocl.exe

Just run it, no need to change to Discrete or anything.

 

Hey guys, I have a couple quick questions about graphics.

I installed those Hybrid drivers a couple months ago, and my HDMI out never worked again after that. If I install the new Acer driver and then the Catalyst drivers as suggested by the poster above, what are the chances my HDMI out will work again? Can anyone running that configuration confirm? Also, does switching still work?

Second, the reason why I installed the hybrid driver was because I had insane graphics issues in two games, Empire: Total War and Tropico 3. I never had any problems with any other games, and even after going to that hybrid driver, those two games still don't work. Does anyone else have issues with either of those games?

I have a i3-370 and 5650 model.

Oh, and thirdly and unrelated to graphics, how do I disable tap to click on the touchpad? It drives me nuts.

 

My HDMI is working (when in ATI mode) and switchable has no issue.

I don't have those games. Any more details why it won't work? Crash? Artifacts?

 

Hello

I just registered for this forum, but have been reading this thread for over a week now. I just want to say thanks to everyone who has supplied all the very useful info in here.

I just received my 3820TG in the mail today and can't wait to start playing around with it. I got the one with the i5 480M and AMD 6550. I got it brand new in the box from Notebookcity. They are a Canadian company based in the Vancouver area. They didn't have any in stock, but were able to track one down for me from one of their suppliers.

I bought a Seagate Momentus XT hybrid drive to put in and will be installing a fresh copy of Windows 7 when I get a chance. I have a question about installing the video card drivers. I have seen that there are basically 3 options to choose from:
1: Hybrid drivers
2: BIOS mod then install the drivers separately
3: Acer drivers

I was leaning towards the BIOS mod, but then I saw the post from "cowithgun" as seen quoted below:

To make sure I get this correct, if I install the VGA driver 8.771.1 and then the newest Catalyst driver, that will have updated drivers for both cards? I noticed that the 8.771.1 drivers are from AMD. After installing the above 2 drivers, would I still have to install the VGA driver made by Intel?

 

Thanks for answering about the drivers so fast.

As for the games, no crashes... they will run, but 90% or more of the screen is artifacted heavily. In Empire, the menus show up but the actual game is completely unrecognizable as a game. It looks like what a game would look like when viewed through a kaleidoscope. Works fine on the integrated graphics, but obviously doesn't run very well.

Tropico is more or less the same thing. I can play Stalker and Metro and Company of Heroes and tons of other games with zero problems, so I can't imagine it is an overheating issue... but maybe.

 

Thanks! I'm looking forward to it!

 

No need to install VGA driver by Intel. The Acer driver 8.771.1 contains Intel drivers 8.15.10.2189. It's not the latest, but will no longer give you problem with hardware acceleration in IE9, MSN, etc.

 

Not sure if it is related, I managed to fixed some game artifacts previously by disabling Catalyst AI.

About Tropico, no harm trying this?
Suddenly Can't Run Tropico 3: Absolute Power with ATI Radeon HD 6850

 

Answering from my phone, so I will be brief. Fo3 goty was crashing at exactly that spot on my Asus laptop with Nvidia optimus, because it was detecting the intel card before the nvidia card could take over. My suggestion is to boot into the BIOS on your 3820tg and set the card to discreet.

Fo3 goty is still buggy after all these years. But I miss the wastelands. Let me know how well it runs on your 3820tg and I may install it again. Btw, if you habe never tried them, get mods for Fo3, they make the game sooooo much better.

 

The hybrid driver contains Catalyst 11.6 (driver version 8.861) and Intel driver 8.15.10.2302. If you insist on getting the latest and greatest, the hybrid driver is still better than the Acer driver, which is long overdue imo.

 

First off, apologies for probably not doing this the "right" way - I'm new to this and not sure of the discussion forum protocol. I did try searching the threads, but no luck...

I've been having a lot of problems with my graphics driver when I (un)plug the AC adapter, including the error message "Graphics card is unable to switch because the resource is in use...". I get the same error message if I try to manually change the card. So it's permanently on the "High performance GPU".

I updated the driver, I reinstalled the driver, I did a system recovery and it's still not fixed. With less than stellar support from Acer, I'm looking for other solutions.

I would like to download the right drivers, but because I'm not so tech savvy, I'm not able to re-interpret the google translated German instructions and I don't want to do something that will mess my computer up.

Can anybody help with a "dummy" English version?

I have:
3820T
i5
Windows 32 and 64 bit (hybrid? normal? - I don't know)
AMD Radeon HD 6550M (driver version 8.741.1.6000)
Intel(R) HD Graphics (driver version 8.741.1.6000)
Not sure how to find out which AMD Catalyst version I have

Thanks in advance!

 

Close any programs that is using the graphics card and you'll be able to switch graphics. If that doesn't work. Restart your computer (not hibernate/sleep) and switchable graphics should work again.

You cannot switch graphics when you are in a game, et cetera.

 

Not that I don't trust modded driver, but I have been avoiding Hybrid driver even if I have to disable Hardware Acceleration in Intel graphic because:

1. The installer will change your OS so that even unsigned driver can be loaded. I'd prefer if my OS will not load any driver that is without a valid Authenticode signature.

2. The watermark removal patched the user32.dll. I'd prefer critical component like user32.dll remained intact and verifiable.

 

sanspm,

In addition to what aylafan said, note that programs such as Windows Live Messenger, Google Chrome and IE9 also use hardware acceleration (ie: use the graphics card to speed up rendering), and will also have to be closed before you are able to switch.

Cheers!

In other news, anyone here with the Intel Ultimate-N 6300 wifi card knows if it will function with just the two antenna which came with the unit, or is it necessary to buy another one?

 

It will work fine- leave the middle connector free.

 

does this work in 3820tg ???

http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m11x/593980-m11x-450mbps-wifi-bigfoot-networks.html

or the 1102 version with 2 antennas ?
Killer? Wireless-N 1102

 

And why would you want to use some-card instead of an Intel 6300 that's proven to be a good one? Never heard of that company and I'm sure they are not making their own radio chips so I don't see the point.

BTW you need a three stream router to achieve 450mbps too.

EDIT: Spent 2 minutes reading about that card and seen so many BS statements that I'm already too tired to laugh.
It reduces your latency 17 times compared to other cards? Really?

 

It will only load any unsigned drivers if you give it permission to, it will say that the driver is unsigned and asks if you wish to proceed before continuing, so you still have control over what gets installed. Also, the watermark remover backs up user32.dll, so if anything goes wrong you can still restore from a backup. In my experience the watermark remover never failed or otherwise cause any problems. If you don't want to patch user32.dll, then you could simply leave the watermark there and everything would be fine.

 

Thanks to both you and aylafan for the tips. It was Windows Live Messenger that was preventing the manual switch.

The problem still remains that after it switches all drop down menus are either solid green or black, and any video (like youtube, vimeo or other videos embedded in websites) are also solid green. I have to reboot in order to get things working properly again. So basically, anytime I (un)plug the AC adapter I have to reboot in order to get things working properly again. Not very practical!

The driver (or the hardware?) still seems to be the source of the problems that I've had since the very first day I got the computer, so I'd still like to try the driver suggested by inteks. If only I could figure out how...

 

To disable graphics acceleration in windows live messenger so that graphics can switch freely with or without it being on, I've had luck by using the guide below:

Hope that helps

 

i've tried to OC my 3820tg, but when i do "pll diagnosis" i get this screen, i can't figure out if my pc is overclockable or not. i can't read "Byte 09h bit 6"

 

My CPU-fan made a loud noise, so I called Acer and they came to my office and picked up my 3820tg. It came back within a couple of days, delivered to my office, with a replaced fan. Problem solved. Really great service I cannot deny!

 

It's been awhile since I posted and I want to say this laptop is the best. I took it out to a coffee shop the other day and started playing some Witcher 2 and had a couple people ask what laptop that was because it made no sense that I was able to play a game with such good graphics, lol.

Anyways, I just upgraded my wireless router to the Asus RT-N56U dual band router and my 3820TG is only seeing 2.4GHz. Is there something I need to change on the laptop? Also, what benefits are there to using 5GHz over 2.4GHz? (I mainly chose this expensive router for the dual USB ports)

 

Pretty sure the wifi cards in these machines are only 2.4GHz. You can replace it with a 5GHz capable card. 5Gz had better throughput but less range. The 5GHz space is generally clearer than the 2.4GHz space.

 

Whats the norm wi-fi card upgrade for the 3820? the intel 6300 (I think that's the name)

EDIT: Also, it seems last time I looked for a 3810T backlit keyboard they were about 30 bucks on ebay. Prices have gone up and they seem to be 45 (and that's from China). Anyone have an extra? Or suggestions on how to get one cheap?

@Bronski: Canada post was on strike for a while and I've been waiting on stuff from China for what seems like months, but I never did get your little package either. No big deal, just thought I'd let you know.

 

Can somebody please help? I'm trying to install the latest driver. I've read the other posts and nothing is working. I'm okay with computers and this shouldn't be as difficult as it is.

Attempt #1: Downloaded 11.6 from Amd Acer, but will not install due to "imcompatible hardware/software". Uninstalled all Ati files, run setup and same error.

Attempt #2: Downloaded 11.3 hybrid driver from here, extracted to c:, ran install as admin, setup completes and I reboot as requested, starts up in big mode without any ati driver at all. Removed and retried with cancelling then installing 11.6 because I read that a few pages back, but no luck.

Attempt #3: If the old files needed to be completely removed, I cleared Amd with driver sweeper and retried both 11.6 and hybrid again but same results.

 

I'm having no problems with 11.6 modded drivers by Alien9.

Try running driver sweeper to clean up all the mess (both Intel and AMD), but this time try setting:

Code:

Bcdedit.exe -set TESTSIGNING ON

first, restart, then run the modded driver installer.

To my knowledge you should leave the BIOS at 'Switchable'. There's no need to change any BIOS settings with that package.

 

So I cleaned both Amd and Intel through driversweeper, rebooted, then started the ATI_11.3_W7x64_Alien9_Hybrid_v3 setup as administrator. It failed because "this version of windows doesn't support unsigned drivers". Where do I type bcdedit.exe -set TESTSIGNING ON at?

What are my options here? I can't install 11.6 for "incompatible hardware/software" or the hybrid due to "unsigned driver" errors.

 

Tks rezendevous - I'll give that a try, though the problem isn't so much that the graphics card switch doesn't work.

The main problem I have is that when I'm on the Intel graphics card, online video like youtube just doesn't work (the web video screen is just black/green). I want to try the driver suggested previously to see if this solves the problem.

Can anybody provide instructions for a layman?

 

Is it the standard warranty, or something special?

 

My fan is constantly loud. What to do?

 

Hey, how does 3820TG's internal microphone work?

 

I can't seem to find a solution anywhere with my google-fu so I am hoping someone here knows:

When I'm using the discrete graphics card on my 3820TG (specifically the 6550m 1GB) to play a game (i.e. Mass Effect or League of Legends), every now and then the video card will crash, the screen turns black. Then 1 of 2 things happen: the game itself crashes or freezes for about 30 seconds. This happens quite often.

I've tried reinstalling the driver, tried using both 32 and 64 bit Windows 7 (Professional).

Also, it should be mentioned that the Intel HD video card has no problems. I can normally use this card, but for graphic intensive games like Mass Effect, it doesn't cut it.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

 

Are you checking the temps while you're gaming? See if the fans are actually ramping up as your temps go up.

I've had this happen with my 5650 a few times when I had the ATI drivers and set to discrete only, but it could be related to OC'ing as well.

 

same problem, nothing work, i have to send it under warranty

 

Sorry, my bad.

Go to Start > Run... (or Windows + R)
type "cmd.exe" and press ok.

You should see the black command prompt pop up. Enter the command there, press 'Enter' to run it, then try to install again.

Note that you can't Ctrl + V into command prompt. Right click anywhere in the black window, and click paste.

 

Did anyone ever successfully change the display on this laptop? I had a chance to check out my friend's HP Evny 14 with a "radiance" display... that thing has a beautiful screen. I was definitely envious.

One of my biggest gripes.. well my only gripe with our laptops is I have to constantly adjust the screen angle and brightness anytime I want to play a game.

Out of curiosity, what do you guys think this laptop would go for on Craigslist? $550ish?